. >> host: john brown. >> guest: so they could defend themselves against attacks by their opponents. after the war, the klu klux klan and groups like that were persecuting freedman, free blacks in the south, and the blacks began to look for ways to defend themselves. the federal government tried continue constitute new state mill lit ya in some of the southern states, and blacks saw them as a way of -- >> host: certainly guns played a role in a lot of our hoyt. what was the legal understanding in those times? when there were restrictions, did folks consider that unconstitutional or just a political battle, whether it is an urban area or a city on the from tier trying -- frontier trying to get its act together. >> guest: the courts didn't have much to say about gun rights except in the state courts, where for the most part, early rulings by state and lower federal courts, supported the right and saw it as a -- not a right that belonged to criminals or to be used for criminal purposes, but more as a right that was in connection with civic duty. but the supreme court didn't say anything